I recieved my valve index controllers and 2.0 base stations yesterday and i have been trying to get them to work since than, unsuccessfully. I have my Pimax 5k+ sitting in my basement since i got it in March.
Whenever i open PiTools with the controllers powered off, one base station says it is working and the other one is undetected. When I turn the controllers on, the second base station starts flashing blue in PiTools and most often one of the controllers is working fine but the other one flashes blue as well. The only way I can get both controllers to work together is to have only one base station powered on.
The problem seems to come from both base stations being set on Channel 1 (according to steamVR) (although it could probably be something else). When I try to go to base station settings or bluetooth settings in SteamVR it just says “Bluetooth not available”. I tried to manually install the Vive lighthouse drivers from the SteamVR tool folder but it won’t help nor show in my Devices Manager’s bluetooth section.
I am pretty sure that my base stations are properly placed in my room as I screwed them to the walls about 6 inches below the ceiling, pointing at each other in 2 corners of my play space.
I am pretty much desperate now as I have been trying to fix this for about 10 hours now and nothing seems to work. Need help from you guys.
I hope it’s getting fixed asap, for you, mate. Sorry, i have no experience with this yet. You could try to go into device manager and disabling the power saving settings for each device one by one. It solved my occulus camera’s problems at least…
You should be able to switch the channels manually by using a pin in the hole ;-). Make sure the basestations are on separate channels first. I would also recommend using only headset and the bases until you get it working. Then try adding the controllers. You may also try to check for the firmware update by connecting the bases via USB to the PC and running SteamVR check.
I am not sure the bluetooth will work, as it seems to work only with the BT integrated in Vive/Valve headsets (linkbox). This makes currently the power management and FW update over the BT exclusive for Index/Vive.
Thanks for the tips! I managed to manually set my second base station to channel 2 but unfortunately it still does not track anything. Still flashing blue in Pitool and Steamvr says it does not track anything. I tried rebooting computer and HMD, disconnected and reconnected both lighthouses and even connected them to my computer via USB to check for updates. Nothing seems to fix the problem
Delete the content of the directory C:\ProgramData\pimax\runtime\config\lighthouse
Start PiServiceLauncher.exe service
This should rebuild the LH database.
Independently, with the LHs running, you can try moving the headset, and blocking the LHs. Sometimes it is necessary to move the headset to wake it up and start tracking. Sometimes it is necessary to block the sensors to force “tracking failure” to restart the tracking.
Tried all those this morning and nothing fixed the problem. I also tried switching places of my lighthouses to see if it was a reflection issue. The same lighthouse (channel 2) still doesn’t track anything and flashes blue in pitools.
I made a screenshot of my Room overview in SteamVR. It looks like it can’t find where the lighthouse is positioned. In room overview it just shows it in the middle of the play space when it should actually be showing in the opposite corner of the room. I guess that is a clue.
I remember my 2.0s with the Vive Pro giving me all kinds of hell seeing each other too. It did end up being the channel settings were wrong, though forget what they were supposed to be set to now. They also were fussy about positioning. I downloaded some overlay on steam that projected lines off the lighthouse in VR to better give you an idea of just how they’re facing that proved useful as well.
If my understanding of how v2.0 LH works is correct, the fact that the both LHs are recognized means the sensors on the headset are receiving them. Since there is no longer the IR array on v2, the sensors should be reading the laser sweeps.
The red LH is positioned wrong, even its “targeting beam” is off to one side.
Technically, the setup with only one LH should work (albeit with a limited visibility). Could you try setting up only one LH at time and see if separately both LHs are working? If not, you may as well have a malfunctioning LH.
I am starting to think that one of my base stations is malfunctioning or corrupted as you said. When trying to setup one lighthouse at the time, one is working correctly and the other one (channel 2) does not track anything.
Yes, help from a technician would be very much appreciated. I might need guidance on how to reinstall firmware on my lighthouse. Something is definitely wrong with it. Otherwise I might need to return it if nothing fixes the problem.
Yes I did room setup multiple times on both. In the SteamVR room setup I could not see the faulty lighthouse on the picture when tracing my play perimeter with a controller.
You could try to uninstall and reinstall SteamVR, deleting the install directory in between (normally C:/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR) to wipe the config.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had a similar issue once but I’m not 100% sure what the fix was sadly.
We had passed over your problem to our technical support. As there are few possible faulty within your problem.
Both channel of the base station overlapping can cause one of the base station cannot be track. You have to change the channel of one of the “faulty” base station.
When your problem still remain unsolved, please submit a ticket at Support center. We will assign a technician for you on diagnose the problem, will do remote desktop if needed.
On a side note, I am hearing some worrying reports that (…unlike V1) SteamTrackingV2 may be rather sensitive to interference from other IR sources, such as LeapMotion, and Kinect devices… Hope that won’t be a problem with our handtracking modules…
@Draffeurd you might still want to check your lighthouse db file, for anything suspicious.
The other thing you may try is switch both LHs to the different channels (as long as they are different to each other) and check if it helps. They do not need to be “1” and “2” exactly.
